


Mend

by stilessexual



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilessexual/pseuds/stilessexual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek's life never made a lot of sense. Stiles has a habit of clearing things up a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mend

**Author's Note:**

> A one-shot basically dedicated to Derek. Also to Kara, who is awesome.

_“The act of war is the last option of a democracy.”_

It was something his dad read in a newspaper, years and years ago, and it stuck with the old man. He drilled the idea into Derek’s head so early in his life that he never really got around to understanding what it meant.

“Son, no one wins in war.” 

He felt his control ebb and slip away from him from the moment he set foot back in Beacon Hills. He knew he should leave as he packed dirt over his sister’s cold, mangled corpse. He knew he was in over his head when young, impressionable Scott (pure, brother, pack) wandered onto his property with his flailing best friend in tow. He knew he’d never come out of the ordeal the same way he went in when he realized the poor kid had no fucking clue what was happening to him.

Derek honestly tried to help Scott. He ended up with his foot so far up his ass that he choked on his own shit. He didn’t think he’d forgive himself if he were Scott. Not that he’d ever forgive himself in the first place. If his life were a book, he thought bitterly, he would be without a single doubt the bad guy –especially if Scott had any say in how the story panned out. The thing about Scott though, was that if he had any actual say in the matter Derek would end up in a sweet little correctional facility somewhere with a lot of sun. So in Scott’s version of the world: everyone lives and everyone’s happy.  

If Stiles wrote it Derek would’ve probably died in the first couple of chapters.  

 (Warm, infuriating, _shut up for the sake of fuck just shut up_ )

Actually he’d probably kill Derek off in the first couple of pages.

The best friend. The nerd. The outcast. The kid was always there, despite not needing to be. Except he did need to be there, Derek reminded himself. A lot of things in his life weren’t clear but the fact that those two boys loved each other wasn’t one of them. Derek knew without a single doubt in the world that if he ever truly hurt Scott that Stiles would come at him with everything he had. He didn’t doubt that for Scott, Stiles would kill him. He also didn’t doubt that Scott would do the same.

 Always on the fringe of the action, always playing Robin of the story instead of the Batman despite the fact that the kid pulled strings without even realizing it and through it all he was there and there and there. Stiles deflected attention to himself by bringing attention to himself. Derek snorted at his own logic, but it was true. The kid was loud, so loud that Derek found himself gnashing his teeth around him, but he never said a single damn thing.

" _You're not gonna make it_ ," he remembered saying. He didn't even remember the reason for the blunt statement. He remembered wanting it to sting. He remembered wishing he could rub salt all over Stiles’ metaphorical wounds.  

_"I know,"_ came the surprisingly dismissive reply. That was it. No complaints. No accusations. No glares. Just a calm acceptance. Derek flittingly thought that maybe this kid wasn't so bad. Then he considered stabbing himself in the face with a rusted spoon.

" _You must be Stiles_ ,"

A handful of words. A harmless sentence, really. Except for the fact that it really wasn't. The knowledge that his Uncle (pack, guilt, pain) was the alpha was one thing; one big painful thing to be dealt with alone (Peter killed Laura) but his seemingly thorough knowledge of who Stiles was another. Why would he focus on one, insignificant human boy? _How dare he?_

It didn't matter. At least it didn’t in that precise moment. Derek couldn't think past the panic that gripped him. He couldn't catch a breath, and he couldn’t move fast enough to get his Uncle as far away from Stiles as possible. He couldn’t hear past the mantra of _protect protect protect_ that echoed on the inside of his skull.  

So he did. Nearly got himself killed for it. The moment the haze of the irrational territoriality lifted he regretted it. What the hell was he even thinking? Who the _fuck_ was Stiles, anyways? He rationalized that the entire ordeal was Scott’s fault.

Scott was, however unwillingly, pack. To Derek, that was a fact. It was like saying the sky was blue or the Earth spun or breathing. It was, in his mind, a definite. Scott was family. 

Scott’s fierce loyalty and stupid all-consuming love when it came to anything that had to do with Stiles somehow made Stiles pack.

So, in conclusion, something in Derek also recognized and categorized Stiles as important. Something in Derek recognized that Stiles was not to be harmed. Not now. Not ever. Not while he still breathed. He then decided that until the clusterfuck that had become Derek’s life (Kate) was resolved he would ignore his conclusion. 

(Peter killed Laura.)

Because it really fucking sucked.

Too soon, much too soon he found himself in a heap of broken bones on the floor of his burned out childhood home. His entire body felt like it had been lit aflame, doused with cold water so that he can be dropped in a vat of acid. He took a deep shuddering breath only to inhale the remnants of someone else’s life force.

(Kate)    

"Love's the most beautiful thing, baby." His mothers face floated in his hazy red-tinged vision, and in his pain-induced deliria he reached out to her. He ached for his mother’s arms, for the sweet butter bread smell of her hair. "But sometimes it hurts, sometimes too much."

"I can't do this anymore, Ma" he groaned as his spine mended and feeling returned to the lower half of his body. He wanted to scream. He wanted to curl around his Mama and sob. “I don’t want to,”  

"Love can be ugly, Derek." Her soft voice whispered in his ears, far away, too far for him to reach "but at the end of the day it's really all we've got."

"No," he whispered back to her, stubborn "I don't want it."

"Get up, son." A small, far away part of him thought that maybe this time he was hurt too badly. Maybe this time he wouldn’t heal right. Maybe this was it for Derek Hale.

"Dad," Derek rasped against the unfamiliar ache in his throat. He hadn’t cried in years.

(Peter killed Laura.)

"Fight it, son." The illusion of his father disappeared, and along with it Derek’s shoulders creaked back into place.

"I don't have any fight left,"

He sat up with a quite groan. The fighting was still going on outside. He heard the distinctly smooth sound of Jackson car coming nearer. The scent of fear on Allison's skin, and blood on her father –yet it all seemed to be so far away. He could barely focus on anything but the shocked look on Kate’s face.

(Kate’s dead.) 

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the corpse of the woman he once loved. He couldn't even find the energy to dredge up the years old hate he had for her –not anymore. She looked so small. Not when the last thing she’ll ever say is sorry and he knew better then to believe it to be sincere for even a second but what he did believe was that she did it to save Allison’s (beautiful, angry, innocent) life. She did it to save the life of the one person she may have purely and truly loved.

(Kate’s dead.)

(Peter killed Laura.)

The smell of burning flesh dragged him out of his home away from _her_ and towards what he knew was a warzone. For the first time in his life the night sky was so suffocating, he thought that it was going to wrap him up and choke him. Scott’s cry of horror went sour down Derek’s throat where it slid and slid and made a place for itself in ribs where he knew it would ache for a long time. Allison’s fate shifted in the stars above them. He could almost taste the crackle of their futures changing with it. He looked over at the human boy (Kate’s dead) who had come there with the sole purpose of helping his best friend. Stiles nodded. Stiles accepted.

_I get it, man._

He killed his Uncle.

Derek killed Peter.

Derek cried that night. He cried the night after that. Derek cried himself raw and sore and tired.

(Peter killed Laura.)

(Kate’s dead.)

~

“Derek?”

“Yeah, Laura?”

The sun hung overhead, a fiery orb in the sky. The trees around them were so green; he could nearly taste their colors on his tongue. The sky was an impossible, blinding shade of blue. They lived for these days, Derek and Laura. They lived for the heat of the sun, and their scents on each other’s skin. Derek cherished every moment he spent with his big sister curled to his side, her head on his chest and the scent of her (sunshine, warm, strawberry) in his nose.

“You can’t keep at this,” she curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. He raised his head enough to look down at her, a rare goofy smile on his lips.

“Keep at what exactly?” He asked, teasingly. He wrapped a lock of her dark hair around his finger; it fell apart in his hand. She smiled at him, and dried blood at her lips cracked and bled afresh.  

“The grief in your bones, Derek” She said with a feminine giggle, “it’ll drive you insane” and absentmindedly wiped the blood from the bites on her neck.

“What’s on your neck, Lars?” He asked her, but he felt slow. He felt so very slow, and his voice wasn’t even his own. There was no sun, and there were no trees, just him and Laura. It’s always been just him and Laura.  

“You need to take care of them, sweet heart.” She replied, her clutch tightening, short nails coming right off.

“Why are you crying, Laura?” He asked trying to reach her, but she was so far away and her white shirt was stained with blood.

“Find solace in the boy,” she tried putting her spilling guts back into her body. “The one with the bright eyes. Find home in him.”

“Laura!”

“You won’t burn him, Derek.”

“Please don’t go,” he cried, “Please don’t leave me,”

“You can’t burn him, sweet heart.” She laughed, and cried and he knew he was dreaming because he couldn’t actually hurt this much without dying. He just couldn’t. “He’s fire, Derek. You won’t burn him.”

(Laura’s dead.)

~

All together they were nine.

That’s really close to eleven.

He guilty pushed the thought far, far away.

(Laura’s dead.)

(Peter killed Laura.)

(Kate’s dead.)

(Peter killed Kate.)

“What’re you doing?” Stiles asked, leaning against a tree.

“Rebuilding,” he sighed, soft and defeated. Stiles nodded seriously like he knew exactly what Derek meant.

“Rebuilding’s always good,”

Derek let his gaze settle on the boy, who was biting nervously on his thumb. Stiles had an addictive scent, he thought suddenly. He was probably the werewolf equivalent of cocaine. Or cat-nip.

(Probably just Derek’s own personal hell.)

 It was an itch he couldn’t scratch; it was the hollowness between his lungs. He wanted to run away. He wanted to run far away, in hopes of maybe outrunning the thoughts in his head, the smell that he could never get off of his own skin, out of his scalp, and from underneath his nails.

Stiles smelled like coffee he knew better then to drink. He smelled like the worn fabric of his father’s uniform jacket. He smelled like the soft vanilla perfume he once let slip that his mother wore. He reeked of Scott’s freshly-mown-grass scent and a little bit of Laura’s sunshine.

(Peter killed Laura.)

“Hey man,” Stiles’ voice had gone all soft sweet sighing, “You alright?”

“What do you think?” Derek hadn’t meant to snap, but he did. He didn’t expect Stiles to grin wide. He never knew what to expect from Stiles. Stiles confused him. Stiles frustrated him. Stiles was still grinning at him.

“I think rebuilding’s always good,”

~

_“Can’t you trust me, just this once?”_

(Peter killed Laura.)

“No!”

~

 (Kate’s dead.)

 “It looks good,” Stiles grinned, sharp. He laughed loud and unexpected as he inspected the finally finished house. “I mean, holy shit, it looks amazing. Go you.”

“Thank you,”

“Stop stressing,” He said suddenly, flailing to face Derek. “Everything’s good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, man.” He had an infection smile on his face, “Give up the tortured act. Everything’s good. Everyone’s chill.”

“Shut up, Stiles.” Derek sighed, walking away to hide his smile. “For fuck’s sake shut up,”

~

“Why are you here?”

That was exactly the last question Derek wanted to ask. Stiles looked up from his AP U.S History homework and frowned at him. He was silent long enough for Derek to begin feeling the flicker-like acid drops of panic burn up in him.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“What?” Derek’s heart fell somewhere between his feet, “Of course not. Forget I asked—

“Where Scott goes,” Stiles jutted his chine towards Scott who was falling over Boyd in laughter “I go.”

“Is that all?”

Stiles’ eyes softened, and when Derek followed his gaze the scene before them made him feel so warm so happy so whole he thought it would rip him apart.

(Laura’s dead.)

Erica and Allison had their heads together, concentrating over the math book open in front of them. Allison gestured with gentle hands and soft encouragements while explaining something to Erica. Isaac and Scott were exuberantly attempting to act something out to Boyd who watched with complete horror –laughing despite himself. Jackson sat at the base of a tree, watching them with Lydia dozing in his lap and a soft smile on his lips.

“Nah man,” Stiles laughed throaty, and when Derek turned back towards him Stiles was watching him with the same soft gaze “that’s not all.”

~

(Peter killed Laura.)

“Stop thinking,”

“Excuse me?” Derek scowled, turning to Stiles who was staring at Derek’s eyebrows of all things. He blinked owlishly before seeming to focus and pointing the wooden spoon he was holding at Derek’s face.

“You think too much,” he accused, jabbing the spoon mere inches away from Derek’s face. “It’s giving me a headache. Stop it.”

“Screw you and your thought process,” Derek mumbled beyond confused, rolling his eyes at the smile that spread across Stiles’ face.

“Here,” he was suddenly jabbing the wooden spoon near Derek’s face again, only this time it was filled with white creamy Alfredo sauce. “Taste this. Tell me if you think it’s missing something.”

Derek had just leaned forward when Stiles frowned, he froze inches too close.

“It’s okay to grieve,” he whispered, eyes flickering wildly all over Derek’s face. “Laura’s dead, Derek. Peter killed her. It’s okay to grieve.”

“How does your mind even work?” Derek asked for lack of a better answer. Stiles grinned and stuffed the spoon into Derek’s mouth.

(Peter killed Laura.)

Derek huffed a reluctant laugh, and lightly smacked the spoon out of Stiles’ hand.

~

“Kate’s dead,” Derek told Stiles one day. He told him like it was news, he told him like it hadn’t been nearly a year since it happened. Stiles looked up from the book in his lap, tiny little smile playing on the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” Stiles spoke slowly, watching Derek pace from beneath his lashes. “Yeah, man. Kate’s dead.”

“She’s dead,” Derek repeated, “but I’m not happy about it.”

“Dying,” Stiles’ mouth twisted around the word, he got up and took cautious steps towards Derek. “It’s hard to be happy about someone dying, Derek. No matter who they are.”

“But—

“But no,” Stiles interrupted, leaning towards him. “You don’t need to be happy about her death. You do not.”

“She killed my family,” he said, in explanation. Stiles nodded, serious and sure.

“She also practically raped you, gave you enough trust issues to last ten lifetimes and brainwashed Allison into almost killing Scott.” Stiles moved forward again, too close and fit his palms on Derek’s shoulders, grounding him. “Derek, the day you’re happy over her death is the day you should realize that something is very, very wrong.”  

(Coffee, vanilla, warm)

“Grieve,” Stiles reminded him gently. Derek let his head drop onto Stiles’ shoulder. “Even for her. Grieve Kate, Derek.”

“Rebuilding’s always good,” Derek mumbled. He didn’t have to look up to know that Stiles was smiling.

“Rebuilding’s always good,” he repeated, and Derek felt Stiles’ laugh all the way to his toes.

~

“Don’t hurt him,”

“ _What?_ ”

“Stiles,” Scott explained, almost patiently. “Everything’s really cool right now. Everyone’s happy. Allison doesn’t walk around like she’s gonna explode. Even Isaac doesn’t have that sick scent on his skin anymore. So I’m telling you not to hurt him because if you do I’ll kill you. Which I really don’t want to do to because I would rather not be Alpha and even though you’re a dick, I’m too used to having you boss me around and my mom would really miss you. But if you hurt Stiles I will kill you. I’ll make it painful and slow and stuff.”

Derek blinked.

 “Okay,”

“Right,” Scott’s frown transformed into a face-splitting grin, he clapped Derek’s shoulder before walking away. “Good talk, dude.” 

“Just because Melissa would miss me,” Derek called to Scott’s back; he laughed outright when Scott gave him the finger.

~

“I think I love you,”

“You think?”

Derek knew he was going about this the wrong way but Stiles was smiling –soft and small and private.

“Yeah,” Derek breathed, taking a step forward “I think I love you,”

“You love me,” Stiles said it like a definite, like a fact. He closed the space between them and put his hands on Derek’s shoulders like he had done so long ago, grounding him.

 “You sound really sure of yourself,” Derek teased, but his hands had made a home for themselves on Stiles’ hips so everything was okay. He thought he could stay here forever –just breathing Stiles in.

“You yelled at Scott for me once,” he grinned, eyes bright “and Scott’s your favorite. I mean, if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”

“Scott’s not my favorite,” Derek frowned,

“I am so totally your favorite,” Scott put in, quickly running past them and out of the house. He was followed by the rest of the Pack, all who were giggling like complete children. Derek felt floaty and airy and bright enough to blind everyone around him even when the front door slammed loudly behind them.

(Derek’s happy.)  

“Okay,” Derek reluctantly agreed, face hurting from the force of his smile “so maybe Scott’s my favorite,” He wanted to drink in the laugh that burst out of Stiles. He wanted to imprint the way Stiles threw his head back on his on the insides of his eyes.

“But you think you love me,”

“Yeah,” Derek grinned, leaning forward. “I love you,”

So Stiles kissed him. Stiles kissed him like he did everything. He gave and gave and gave so much that Derek didn’t know how to make up for it all.

“Come on, big guy” his voice had gone throaty, and low. His fingers were tight in Derek’s hair. “You won’t break me,”

_“He’s fire, Derek. You won’t burn him.”_

~

(Derek's happy.) 

~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. :)


End file.
